: (Michael Kamen) One of the
relatively unimportant downsides of the attacks on America on September
11th, 2001 was its impact on filmmakers' ability to show terrorists
causing airplanes to explode in blockbuster movies. Fortunately for
enthusiasts of such chaos on the screen, director Renny Harlin offered
no less than three exploding airplanes caused by terrorist activities in
. The 1990 sequel to the surprise 1988 hit
was, despite its numerous fallacies of logic, praised
for being mindlessly engrossing entertainment, and when the film easily
surpassed the box office numbers of its predecessor, the franchise's
ongoing viability was confirmed. The villains of the sequel are wayward
U.S. Army Special Forces personnel who are conspiring to rescue a South
American drug lord who is about to arrive at Washington's Dulles airport
for trial in America. The home-grown terrorists take control of the
airport's lighting and communications systems using underground
connections to a nearby church, leaving the circling planes low on fuel
above helpless in a snowy nighttime environment. Waiting at the airport
for his wife to arrive is the first film's hero, John McClane (Bruce
Willis), who progressively confronts and destroys the terrorists and
their associates without much help from other law enforcement. The film
remains notable for its impressive special effects sequences involving
the fiery demise of large commercial and cargo airliners, two of which
exploding on take-off or landing in spectacular fashion, killing
hundreds of people. Those who protest the film because of these
depictions forget that the
franchise has always been
unlucky for innocent bystanders in the story, and at least the villains
in each case are appropriately annihilated as well. The soundtracks for
the first three films in the series are littered with influences from
non-original instrumental pieces, many of which classical. The two John
McTiernan-helmed entries (
) both reflected the director's own classical interests,
those films also making use of pop-oriented source songs as well. For
, Harlin reprised the use of the Christmas song "Let It
Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!" (performed by Vaughn Monroe) for the
end credits but also made extensive use of the symphonic poem
"Finlandia" by Jean Sibelius, a move thought to result from the
director's own Finnish heritage.
Contending with (and in some cases adapting) the source
insertions in the first three
Die Hard films was composer Michael
Kamen, whose scores for this concept are quite functional but not
entirely memorable outside of context. In many ways, Kamen's
contributions to the initial trilogy of these movies was overshadowed by
the need for him to work around many placements of others' work,
especially in the first film, which required him to extensively
manipulate several holiday and classical themes into his original music.
In
Die Hard 2, the tone of "Finlandia" (outside of the most
celebratory moments) meshes well enough not to clash with Kamen's music
in context. In comparison to the prior film's score, Kamen's sequel is a
bit more consistent in its flow, dropping the Western twang for McClane
and maintaining longer individual sequences of suspense and action. The
style of the instrumentation is similar, though the Christmas-like
percussion is reduced to a few brief passages of sleigh bell rhythms and
replaced by more heavily slapped metallic elements. Muted trumpets play
an even greater role, making connections to Bernard Herrmann's classic
suspense style. The prior score's original themes return, the main
identity still the rather tragic six-note motif that most often gets cut
down to four notes, heard more evenly in the presentation of the score
this time. Several of the tapping, stuttering, and generally understated
suspense rhythms return as well, in this entry aided by a little more
unconventional percussion. The brass motif of accelerating rhythmic
blasts to denote the crescendo of an action cue is applied in at least
four circumstances, becoming perhaps the most accessible and noticeable
idea in the franchise at the time. A couple of new themes are presented,
the most important one a significant misstep by Kamen. The dainty
woodwind flutters for the terrorists (heard best in "Colonel Stuart" and
"The Church") are not only nebulous but awkwardly frivolous for the
characters. The bamboo flute application for this motif does little to
instill a sense of gravity in the score, especially after the plot shows
the main villain ominously performing tai chi in the nude to open the
film. More impressive is the less frequently stated idea for the drug
lord, his muscular idea in "General Esperanza" reminiscent of vintage
Alan Silvestri brawn. Other than these moments, much of
Die Hard
2 will seem like leftovers or simple extensions of the material from
the first film, "The Annexe Skywalk" a good example of a cue that
doesn't really accomplish much other than emulate the predecessor's
style.
The sustained action sequences in the latter half of
Die Hard 2 ("The Runaway," "Snowmobiles," and "Icicle") contain
impressive volleys of orchestral might that are a little more
harmonically pleasing, emulating the best of Kamen's lone James Bond
score,
License to Kill. These portions, although they rely upon
the low brass pulses and ensemble rhythmic acceleration devices of the
previous score, really steal the spotlight in the sequel regardless of
the newer ideas Kamen explores. For more than twenty years, the
composer's efforts for
Die Hard 2 were represented by just forty
minutes of material on a commercial Varèse Sarabande album, a
decent summary of the score's main features. In 2012, the same label
made
Die Hard 2 an entry in its limited Club series, the greatly
expanded presentation of over two hours selling out from the label in its
3,000-copy run within just a few weeks. Fans frustrated by the shorter
presentation will be pleased with the contents and sound quality of the
2-CD set, especially given Kamen's ability to stretch the strengths of
his score out over such a great length of time. The additional material
on this 2012 product is not only substantial in running time, but it
really fleshes out the composer's material to an impressive degree. That
means that listeners receive considerably more of Kamen's harshly robust
action material (including the full "Fight on the Wing" sequence of over
eleven minutes, culminating in one last dissonant blast of the flutes to
denote the main villain's demise). On the other hand, it also means that
the composer's far less interesting suspense music is also expanded,
leaving huge dead spots in the listening experience. Despite the
muscularity of Kamen's action cues for this film, his conversational and
stalking music barely registers or engages the listener unless you are a
big enthusiast of the movie itself. Nineteen minutes of alternate takes
are included on the 2012 set, most of which more understated than the
other versions and reprising the plucky personality of the previous
score. Overall,
Die Hard 2 is a sufficient and occasionally
entertaining score, serving as a decent alternative on album (either on
the shorter or longer releases) for those who do not care to spend a
fortune on the historically rare
Die Hard albums. Included with
both
Die Hard 2 album presentations is "Finlandia," and a
listener could easily arrange fifteen to twenty minutes of solid music
for this franchise from this score. Just don't expect to hear Kamen take
the music to the next level, something he was never allowed to do for
the
Die Hard sequels, despite the fact that
Die Hard 2 was
unquestionably his most coherent entry in the series.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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| Bias Check: |
For Michael Kamen reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.13
(in 15 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.23
(in 34,673 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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